Update:
CNN has since stealth edited their reporting to clarify that Gray allegedly "expressed frustration that transgender people were being accepted in society."
Original:
Colt Gray, the suspected shooter accused of killing four at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, reportedly posted on social media about his plans to carry out a mass shooting over his "frustration with the acceptance of transgender people."
Last year, a Discord account that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has linked to the 14-year-old shooting suspect had referenced plans for a future massacre and shared screenshots of firearms, documents obtained by CNN allege.
Daily Mail has obtained transcripts from Colt Gray's father's interview with law enforcement last year. The father reveals that his son, who is accused of carrying out a mass shooting this week at school, was bullied for being queer. https://t.co/9PDUDE0qUT pic.twitter.com/8YN1ykuNxP
— Andy Ngo 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) September 6, 2024
"im committing a mass shooting and im waiting a good 2-3 years," the Discord user wrote, according to screenshots included in an FBI incident report dated May 2023. "I cant kill myself yet, cause I'm not contributing anything to culture I need to go out knowing I did."
In separate posts, the account expressed a desire to target an elementary school and expressed "frustration with the acceptance of transgender people," CNN reports. The account also referenced Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza.
"I'm ready," the Discord user captioned a photograph of two firearms.
Gray was on the FBI's radar since spring of last year. FBI Atlanta announced Wednesday evening that they knew about the 14-year-old making terroristic threats as early as May 2023.
About a year and a half ago, the FBI's National Threat Operations Center received several anonymous tips concerning online threats to commit a school shooting at an unidentified location and time. The posts contained photographs of guns. Within 24 hours, the FBI discovered that the online posts originated in Georgia. Accordingly, the FBI's Atlanta field office referred the matter to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office.
The local sheriff's department located a male suspect, then the age of 13, and interviewed him as well as his father, Colin Gray. His father, who's now facing manslaughter charges himself for allegedly gifting Gray the murder weapon, acknowledged he had hunting guns in the house; however, the suspect did not have unsupervised access to them, he maintained. The suspect denied making the online threats, and Jackson County authorities alerted local schools for "continued monitoring of the subject."
"At that time, there was no probable cause for arrest or to take any additional law enforcement action on the local, state, or federal levels," FBI Atlanta said in the statement.
FBI confirmed that this is the same suspect charged in connection with the Apalachee High School shooting.
According to CNN, after the FBI tip was shared with the Jackson County Sheriff's Office, the county closed the investigation upon finding that "the user behind the Discord account that made the threat cannot be substantiated."
A Discord spokesperson told CNN that the platform had removed an account "believed to be associated with" Gray in May 2023 for violating the site's policy against extremism.
Gray's father told law enforcement that he was "bullied for being gay," according to transcripts of the police interview acquired by Daily Mail.
"It went from one thing to another," Colin Gray said during a conversation with a Jackson County detective. "I was trying to get him on the golf team. [They were like] 'Oh, look, Colt's gay. He's dating that guy.' Just ridiculed him day after day after day."